MIAMI – The Bush administration is considering a temporary reprieve from deportation for undocumented migrants whose countries were devastated by last month’s earthquake and tsunamis, a federal immigration official in Washington said Friday.

“It’s something that is under consideration, but no decision has been made at this time,” said Bill Strassberger, a spokesman for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the Homeland Security Department’s unit that administers benefits for immigrants.

Strassberger’s statement marked the first time that the Bush administration has publicly expressed interest in granting Temporary Protected Status for migrants from tsunami-ravaged nations around the Indian Ocean.

Separately, another Homeland Security agency – U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement – announced late Friday that it had temporarily suspended deportations to Sri Lanka and the Maldives, two of the affected countries, until April 7.

An Immigration and Customs Enforcement statement said that noncriminal migrants from other affected countries, who have been ordered deported, can request a stay of deportation. The agency will review petitions and suspend removals on a case-by-case basis also until April 7, the statement said.

Strassberger said he could not say precisely how many people would benefit from possible TPS from those countries, but assumed that the figure could be in the “low thousands.”

Until now, U.S. officials had said they were monitoring the situation in the region for possible immigration consequences, but had not answered questions about whether temporary permits were under review.

The program would allow undocumented migrants to apply for work permits and remain in the United States for 18 months.

Temporary Protected Status is a Citizenship and Immigration Services program for undocumented migrants from certain countries in crisis.

It enables qualified nationals from designated countries to apply for work permits and remain in the United States for up to 18 months – without fear of deportation even if they arrived without papers.

TPS can be renewed indefinitely but does not allow recipients to apply for permanent residence. TPS can also be revoked by the government as happened recently to TPS-holders from volcano-ravaged Montserrat. Their program ends Feb. 27.

The largest TPS program in place covers almost 250,000 Salvadorans.

Citizenship and Immigration Services announced Thursday that it was renewing that program for another 18 months. The second-largest program protects about 100,000 Hondurans and Nicaraguans.

A chart in the immigration service’s annual statistical yearbook for fiscal year 2003, the latest, shows that about 4,290 people from tsunami-affected countries were identified as “deportable.”

The largest number, 3,054 came from Indonesia, followed by 826 from India, 262 from Thailand and the rest from Sri Lanka and Somalia.

Strassberger said that besides considering TPS for migrants from tsunami-devastated countries, Citizenship and Immigration Services was also looking at other possibilities to assist legal travelers and immigrants from those countries.

He said travelers who were in the United States when the disaster struck may be allowed to extend their stay and immigrants applying for immigration documents may be given permission to leave the country to visit relatives in affected areas.

People applying for documents are generally told not to leave lest their pending application is classified as abandoned.

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(c) 2005, The Miami Herald.

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AP-NY-01-07-05 2303EST